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Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Dawn Primarolo: Much as I am tempted to give way, the answer is no.
In December, the Government announced another major plank of their welfare reform package--the Green Paper, "Partnership in Pensions". The Government are about helping tomorrow's pensioners and protecting today's pensioners, and about examining retirement issues and ensuring that there is security in retirement. That is good news for pensioners.
Conservative Members' record on helping pensioners shows that they have no right to try to lecture the Government on caring for the poor. They failed today's pensioners, and they failed tomorrow's pensioners. They spent years not addressing the issues. They put VAT on heating after promising not to, and they did not help to solve the pensions mis-selling scandal. The Tories wrongly encouraged people to opt out of occupational pensions into private personal pension plans, and failed to take action to compensate victims of pensions mis-selling.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton):
I congratulate the Paymaster General on her promotion--which she may not have expected. Other than the Chancellor, she is now the only Minister who has been at the Treasury since abolishing the tax credit was first proposed to the House. I hoped that, today, the Paymaster General would offer a better defence of the proposal. However, she failed to answer any of the substantive questions asked by Opposition Members--specifically that asked by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait)--which is deeply to be regretted.
I congratulate the official Opposition on their motion, which has the support of myself and other Liberal Democrat Members. For many months, we have supported and worked on the issue with Conservative Members. I pay credit specifically to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), who has worked with my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), to create a cross-party alliance. We have been pleased also that some Labour Members have supported us in our early-day motion. In Committee, we all remember the brief but pertinent and very effective--or so we thought--intervention made by the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston), the new Solicitor-General, who has gone on to higher things. We had hoped that he would use his influence to express his concern about the poorest pensioners, but, regrettably, that has not happened.
I welcome this debate because it gives the Opposition an opportunity to expose the Government's soundbite politics, which overwhelms substantial politics. The Prime Minister was at it again this weekend, in the News of the World, when he said:
The Government's real policies take money from pensioners. Moreover, the minimum income guarantee will not protect any of the pensioners whom we are considering in this debate, as most of them will have savings above £8,000 from which they gain their dividend income. They will not be eligible for the income support increases mentioned by Ministers. Those pensioners, therefore, will be affected but not protected by the Government's policy. The Paymaster General shakes her head. I should be grateful if she would intervene on that substantive point. I should like her also to deal with it in her reply. Opposition Members are concerned that those pensioners will be affected and that they will be offered absolutely no protection.
I welcome the Government's amendment, as it enables us to refer back to last week's Opposition day debate initiated by Liberal Democrat Members. In that debate, we demonstrated that the Government's NHS policy would not help pensioners as Ministers claimed it would. Ministers go on and on about the £21 billion that the policy will provide for the NHS--but Liberal Democrat Members demonstrated in last week's debate that if the year-on-year increases made by the previous Government were projected over this Parliament, the current Government will, by the fifth year of this Parliament, have produced only £1 billion extra for the NHS. That is the extent of the Government's commitment to the NHS and to the pensioners who use it. Over five years, the figure is £1 billion, not £21 billion; it is a total nonsense and fabrication. I am therefore glad that the Government have tabled their amendment, so that we can again demonstrate that that figure is a complete fabrication.
There is a long history to the debate on the issue, with which the House has dealt on many occasions. As Isaid, Liberal Democrat Members have developed a co-operative approach. When the issue was first debated, on 22 July 1997, in the Standing Committee considering the Finance (No. 2) Bill, I joined the hon. Members for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and for Ashford (Mr. Green) in warning Ministers about the effect of their proposals. As the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) pointed out today, the measure was being guillotined and rushed through. However, we gave Ministers the benefit of the doubt.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Ashford and I pointed out that the Government had perhaps made a mistake, and suggested that they probably did not intend to hit the poorest pensioners. We gave them a chance to make amends. Unfortunately, Ministers were in a fairly belligerent and arrogant mood, and they told us that we were lecturing them. The Government, of course, take lectures from no one, as they keep reminding us. Nevertheless, it was a shame that they did not listen to us, because we were pointing out that an issue of social justice was involved. I thought they were supposed to care about such issues. I hoped that Ministers would listen to us, rather than respond as the then Economic Secretary did.
Mr. Webb:
The Paymaster General mentioned pensions fraud when talking about social justice. Surely one of the biggest pensions frauds of recent years was the raiding of the pension fund of the bus employees, who are now pensioners. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling
Mr. Davey:
I am grateful for that intervention because it shows one of the problems with the Government. One Minister is warring with another and they cannot make up their minds. That is what happened in this case. The previous Paymaster General said that he would review it and made promises to the House of Commons, but other Ministers did not follow through on that. The Deputy Prime Minister was clearly trying to bat for the bus employees, but he has been blocked by the Treasury.
After the initial debate in Committee on dividend tax credits on 22 July, the issue came back to the House on Report on 29 July, but we got no movement from the Government. It was then raised in Committee on 14 May 1998 as a result of initiatives by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. The Liberal Democrats supported him, with effective speeches coming from my hon. Friends the Members for Twickenham and for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett). I warned the Government that:
It looked as though we were building up a head of steam, but there was continual delay and equivocation. Although we were pressing the Government in private
meetings and letters--my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham sent a letter to the Prime Minister on 25 November--we were getting no response.
"This is your Government, living in your world, with your priorities."
He applied the usual Government spin about the Government's minimum income guarantee for pensioners, which is an Arthur Daley guarantee and is not worth the paper it is not written on.
"We are talking about the most disadvantaged and vulnerable elderly people in our constituencies. Do Labour Members really want to impose a savage tax increase on those people?"
The good news was that we got a sign of movement. A professor--the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North--said that the Government should look again at the issue. He seemed to have some influence with the then Paymaster General. Those of us who were on the Committee remember the discussions that they had on the Back Bench, seemingly stitching something up. We got the first glimpse of light from the Paymaster General when he said:
"Perhaps a case can be made for an overall limit on payable tax credits, which might be in the region that Age Concern described in its very good paper. That is not a promise; it is merely a promise to revert".--[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 14 May 1998; c. 190-94.]
When we reverted to the issue on Report on 30 June 1998, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton tabled a new clause. The debate brought forth another delphic pledge from the former Paymaster General. He said:
"I am also aware of the growing anxiety among poorer non-taxpayers who have been hit by the measure."
He added:
"We are looking at alternatives".--[Official Report, 30 June 1998; Vol. 315, c. 175.]
He did not make a promise--he was clear about that--but we felt that a nod was as good as a wink with him. We were hopeful that the review that he announced would produce something of substance. We were encouraged when Labour Back Benchers joined forces with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on early-day motion 56, which gained more than 20 Labour signatures. Some of those Labour Members are present tonight. We have heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones). I see the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) here as well, who also signed the early-day motion.
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